It was late in the afternoon before Remy came back very tired, ready to just flop in the bed. Em was sitting outside on the porch step with a bunch of reedmace and a few bowls at her feet and a knife in her hand. A big smile appeared on her face when he saw Remy coming from between the trees carrying a big plastic bag.

“Hey, you’re back!” she exclaimed and jumped on her feet. Pieces of reedmace scattered around.

“Yeah, finally,” Remy said sighing and dropping the back. “I thought I’d never get home.” It must’ve been the canned meat that made this trip especially draining. Or maybe it was the weight of the thoughts that bothered him; his past, Em’s future, what she’d do and what he’d do.

“But I brought us some food. And I got you clothes too, hopefully they fit,” Remy said.

“Clothes? Really? Thank you so much!”

“No problem. What are you doing with those?” Remy asked then, nodding if head towards the pile of plants on the porch.

“Oh, those. You’ll never guess what I found. A book about plants! It was under the bed in the furthest corner. And it says which plants can be eaten. So I’ve just been reading it and it said reedmace is edible, so I went back to the river and collected a bunch.”

Remy couldn’t help but smile at Em’s excitement.

“Well done. I didn’t even know the book was there. This makes things a lot easier. We can have them today with rice.”

“Sounds great. You have so much stuff. What did you get?”

“Uhh, rice and pasta, flour, bread, powdered milk, canned meat and apparently heart shaped chocolates too,” Remy said looking at the bag. Felicity better put heart-shaped chocolate in all pity bags and not just his.

“Wow, that’s so much. How did you get it all?”

“Just from this one place. Sorry, I’m pretty tired so I think I’m just gonna go and flop in bed for a while,” Remy said smiling apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it. I understand. You’ve walked a lot, so you need to rest. I’ll finish these and come inside too.”

Remy smiled a little and jumped over all the prepared plants with the food bag in his hands. The door creak in a very complaining manner when he opened and closed it. Em sighed and sat back on the porch step, picking up some more reedmace. They’d eat so well.

Inside Remy put the food bag on the table and then walked to the bed collapsing on it with a deep sigh. He was so tired. He rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling before quickly falling to sleep. Remy had known to expect the nightmares, but he had wished they’d stay away this time. That wish had been in vain.

The room was dark. Remy heard quiet weeping from next to him. He already knew without turning to look that it was his younger brother. They were hiding behind the bed, listening to the screams, crashes and wild growls that came from behind the closed door. When mum screamed, they both covered their ears, crying silently. It was quiet for a moment but then steps headed towards the door the separated the boys from the horrid events happening on the other side where mum and their sister had been trapped. They could hear long claws sinking on the wood, carving marks that would never disappear from the door, when the beast tried to make its way to remaining targets.

“R-Remy, I’m scared,” his brother whispered.

“I’m scared too but everything’s gonna be fine James,” Remy said, hugging his brother.

Something heavy slammed against the door and it groaned. Another slam and the hinges cracked. The boys hugged each other tightly when the door slammed open. From the darkness they could see two red eyes and hear a low growl….

The scene changed even though they were still in the house. The place was empty now, with dried blood on the floors and claw marks engraved on the wood.

“Dad’s gonna know we’re here,” one of the boys whispered. He had long grey hair that partially covered his eyes.

“I don’t care. I don’t want this anymore Remy. He wants us to be wolves, but I don’t want to.”

“But are you sure this is gonna work?” Remy asked sounding nervous.

“Why wouldn’t it work? We just need to hide for the night. Now cover the windows so no light gets in. We don’t have much time left.”

“It hurts! Remy, it hurts!”

“I know. It…hurts so much. Let’s open the curtains.”

“No! We can’t! ….It…. hurts!”

“James, this doesn’t work! Let’s stop!”

“I can’t…. We must… Oh my god, I hear it Remy. I…I hear it in my head… It speaks to me. I..I… AAAAAAHHH”

“James! James!”

“Remy! Wake up! Remy wake up. You’re having a nightmare.” He heard the faint voice and felt the gentle shaking. He sprang up and felt his head it something hard.

“Ouch!” Em exclaimed retreating back, pressing her chin and lip.

“Oh, sorry,” Remy said. His heart was beating in his chest and it felt like he could still hear his brother’s voice in his head.

“Are you alright? You were tossing and shouting in your sleep?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little nightmare. The city isn’t the best place for me,” Remy said smiling a bit gloomily.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Em said.

“Haha, don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“Do you want a chocolate? To cheer you up?”

“Well, maybe one,” Remy said. Em smiled a little, went back to the table and threw two pieces of chocolate at Remy who managed to catch them both.

“Wow, being generous. You know this is our only chocolate, right? We better savour it,” Remy said, smiling a bit.

“Oh, okay. You can give the other one back then,” Em replied.

“Too late for that, see? I already opened them both.”

“How greedy.”

“You gave me two when I asked for one.”

“You looked like you’d need two. Your dreams were pretty bad by the sound of them.”

“Oh…”

Em regretted her words instantly. She had wanted to cheer Remy up but now she had reminded him about it again. How stupid of her.

“Do you want to, like, talk about it?” she asked.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m sorry that I worried you,” Remy replied. He felt a little bad, but she didn’t want to bother Em with his troubles. It wasn’t exactly the brightest topic to talk about.

“Okay, no worries.”

“I think I’ll try to sleep a bit more. Feel free to wake me up if I start screaming again.”

“Will do. I’ll start making dinner in the meanwhile then. Sleep well.”

He didn’t see more nightmares. Maybe it was the comforting and protecting power of chocolate that kept the bad dreams away. Or maybe it was the quiet humming and singing Remy could hear coming from the kitchen while Em cooked rice and reedmace for their luxurious dinner.

Several days passed, a few weeks actually. Em would’ve lost her sense of time completely if it hadn’t been for the moon that kindly showed up during the night to tell them that over half of the month had passed. It was way past half moon now and Em started feeling a bit nervous about the thought of the upcoming full moon. Remy didn’t seem to worry about it too much, but he was used to it after all. However, he had been little melancholy after visiting the town but tried to hide it so Em felt like she shouldn’t ask about it too much. If Remy didn’t want to talk about it, then it was fine. Em did hope that she could do something to help. All she could think of was to talk about cheery things but there wasn’t too much to talk about when living in a barren shack. So, she usually talked about her dog. Talking about Poppy made Em miss her dog very much. Surprisingly she didn’t miss home too much, maybe she had accepted somewhere in the corners of her mind that she probably wouldn’t be going back home in a while. But she did miss Poppy, but Remy seemed to like the stories, so she told her everything she could think about her dog. It did seem to help a little bit.

Remy woke up from his afternoon nap and found the shack to be empty. He had been napping a lot since most nights were now occupied by restless dreams. It wasn’t anything unusual but just very wearing. He was tired all the time and just couldn’t get rid of some of the dreams.

“Em?” he called going outside but didn’t get any answer. “Em?”

He started heading towards the river since that was the first place he though she’d be. Then an unpleasant idea popped in his head. What if Em was gone? If she had just decided to leave without saying anything? The thought made Remy hasten his pace, she had to be at the river. If she wasn’t… The idea made Remy’s stomach turn. Would Em even find her way home? She had no idea where they were. Of course, following the river would lead her to other people but she could wander around for days. He shouldn’t have slept. It had been a dumb thing to do. He still felt guilty about not telling Em that her family was looking for her. He should’ve done it, but he was so scared of being left alone again. But now it may have happened for real. Remy almost started running but he was already at the river. He looked around looking for Em and almost called out to her when he heard the water splashing. Quickly Remy hid behind a tree and peeked from behind it. His face flushed red from cheeks to ears.

Em had been swimming and just as Remy peeked from behind the tree, she got up from the water. Very quickly Remy retreated back to hiding. His heart was beating very quickly. Em had looked…very nice. He had already seen Em naked once but hadn’t thought much about it since it was pretty natural and normal for him. He had seen other girls naked too after full moon nights and with Em it had been nothing more special. But now his heart beat funnily. The water made her body gleam in the sun, her hair sticking to her body… She smiled while brushing her hair from her face. New wave of red and hotness flushed over Remy’s face and he quickly headed back towards the shack. This time he ran, hoping that the image of Em would fall out of his head and stay behind.

When Em came back, Remy was “very focused” on reading the plant book he had probably read at least twice already. He heard the door but didn’t look up before Em spoke to her.

“Oh hi, you’re already awake,” she said.

“Yeah, woke up a while ago,” Rem mumbled and shifted his eyes towards Em. Her hair was still wet, and it left wet patches on her little-too-big light blue t-shirt that was also sticking to her body. She had rolled her trousers as high up as possible but one of the trouser legs had fallen back down.

“You went swimming?” he asked.

“Yeah, thought I might as well since it’s so warm and you were sleeping. I didn’t really have anything else to do.”

“Yeah.”

Em sat at the table, to the opposite side to Remy who was still trying to focus on his book. Em was silent for a while, just looking at Remy reading about different kind of mushrooms.

“Hey, Remy,” she said then, “I’ve been thinking…”

“Hmm?” was Remy’s reply although his heart started to beat a bit faster for some reason.

“If we turn when we see the moon, why can’t we just hide somewhere and then there’d be no problem? We would just stay human all the time, right?”

Remy felt a wave of terror wash over him from hearing Em’s words. Without even realizing, he jumped from his chair and over the table grabbed Em’s shoulders.

“Don’t ever say that! Don’t even think about that! And don’t never ever try that! Do you understand? Forget it!” he shouted so loudly it startled Em. She was pretty scared of Remy right now in general. He had a scary expression on his face; a mix of fear and desperation. His grip from her shoulders was really tight.

“O…okay, I won’t. I’m sorry. Can you let go? That hurts…”

Remy seemed to snap back to reality and let go of Em, sitting back to his chair.

“Sorry,” he whispered covering his face with his hands. “It’s just that… I know what happens if you try… It’s not good. You should just forget it.” Then he got up so quickly he almost stumbled on the bench and hurried outside, leaving a very confused and worried Em alone. The moose head looked down at her judgingly.

Few minutes later she walked outside and saw Remy sitting on a rock. He seemed to be sulking and for a moment Em hesitated a bit about going to him. But she wanted to apologize, and she also wanted to know why Remy had reacted so badly. So, she headed towards Remy, feeling a nervous lump in her stomach.

“Hey,” she said quietly. Remy didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry about what I said.” Now Remy turned his head towards her. His eyes were red and swollen.

“Don’t be sorry. You just asked, nothing wrong with that,” he said sighing. “I’m the one who has to apologize for shouting and hurting you. I’m sorry.” Em touched Remy’s shoulder gently and smiled a bit. No worries, apology accepted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked then. Remy was quiet for so long Em thought she probably should head back inside and leave him be.

“I had a brother,” Remy said then, just as Em was leaving. She turned to look at him. Em could already tell this story didn’t end well. “He was four years younger than me. His name was James. We lived with our mother and sister. Our dad was barely at home. He was a wolf and had another family in other place, kind of, so he was often there.”

Em sat down on the ground. Remy looked so sad it wrenched her heart.

“One night dad was going to leave us again, it was full moon. Mum was sick of him going so they started a fight. Then he turned, I don’t think he wanted it to happen but it did. James and I hid in the bedroom when he killed mum and my sister. Then he came for us…”

Em gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

“For some reason he didn’t kill us. But he took us with him. He wasn’t a normal werewolf, you see. He had…advanced. He was more human like, more monstrous, smarter. He took us with him and turned us. I accepted it eventually, but my brother hated it. After few months we ran away and went back home. James was sure we could stop ourselves from turning into wolves if we just stayed hidden from the moon.” A hint of sadness was now mixed in Remy’s voice.

“We tried it. We covered the windows and sat in the dark. But it didn’t work. When the moon rose, the wolf wanted to come out. James was determined, he was much stronger than I was. He wanted to fight against it. But it doesn’t work like that. I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and gave up. I turned. James was so stubborn he actually managed to keep the wolf at bay and didn’t turn. But the cost was too high. It…it broke him. One second he could act normal and the other he would just explode in rage. It was terrifying. We tried to help him, but there was really nothing we could do. He hated it even more than being a wolf. He didn’t want to live his life like that. So, he…” Remy couldn’t say anymore. He covered his face again but Em could still see few tears rolling on his cheek. She moved closed and wrapped Remy in a warm hug.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I promise I will never try that.” He felt Remy nod a bit and Em smiled gently while stroking his hair and hugging him more tightly. Remy had gone through so much more she could’ve ever even imagined, and still Em felt like she had just heard the beginning.